


Fireworks

by wafflesandkruge



Category: Nikolai Series - Leigh Bardugo, Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Chinese New Year, Explosions, F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Slice of Life, post-kos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:48:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26473654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflesandkruge/pseuds/wafflesandkruge
Summary: Food. Friends. Family. Those are the three things required for Lunar New Year. But in his new life in Ravka, Kuwei doesn't have any of them. So of course, he resolves to at least blow some things up. Because fireworks are also an essential part of the festival. Or at least that's what he tells Leoni and Adrik when he ropes them into his scheme.
Relationships: Adrik Zhabin & Kuwei Yul-Bo, Leoni Hilli & Kuwei Yul-Bo, Leoni Hilli/Adrik Zhabin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Fireworks

Kuwei crept through the halls of the Little Palace, his boots nearly soundless against the marble floors. What he wanted to do today required absolute stealth, and if he was caught, there would be hell to pay. He reached a corridor, turned his heads both ways to make sure there weren’t passing grisha, then swiftly moved on.

His first target was a Durast workshop, which was blessedly empty. They hated having Inferni in there (gee, he wondered why) and would have pushed him out as soon as he took a step over the threshold. Kuwei stopped in front of a shelf of blasting powders and inspected them critically. While he was perfectly fine at mixing explosives, the Ravkan labels were tripping him up. There weren’t any chemical formulas, just a name scrawled onto each container. That would somewhat complicate things. 

He deliberated for a few more seconds, then finally just grabbed a basket from the shelf and took a jar of everything. Best case scenario, he’d figure it out once he had time to open them and inspect the contents. Worst case scenario, he’d make a dud firecracker. Or blow up the Little Palace, but that was a little closer to a best case scenario than a worst case scenario.

Weighed down by all his chemical components, he was reminded of working with his father in his labs. It wasn’t exactly  _ fun _ , per se, being held hostage never was, but he missed his comforting presence. Even more so because today was the Lunar New Year, a time meant to be spent with family. Even now, he could hear his father’s gruff voice. 

“ _ Kuwei, there are three things that are vital for a Lunar New Year. Food. Friends. Family. Understand? _ ”

He _ maybe _ had the first one down. But the Little Palace’s porridge and fish was a far cry from the dumplings and noodles they’d make every year. Friends? He had a few, sure. But every time they laughed together, Kuwei couldn’t help but feel like they were only friends with Nhaban, not his real self. Being a political refugee was lonely work. And family was out of the question. He hoped the Fjerdans had at least given his father an honorable burial. 

Kuwei shook his unfortunate past from his head as he made his way down the hallway to the Alkemi labs. Since David was in a day-long meeting with the rest of the Triumvirate, he should have had free reign of the place. He slipped through the rather unassuming door and made his ways to an empty work desk. Then froze and ducked behind a shelf. 

Female laughter drifted over from a desk that had been blocked from his view at the door. “You have a very skewed view of Nina, Adrik.”

Her comment was met with low grumbling. Kuwei peeked out from his hiding spot a bit and his suspicions were confirmed. Leoni Hilli was working at her desk and chattering animatedly while Adrik Zhabin grouched and spun around on the next desk’s swivel chair. They were a little older and had been deployed to Fjerda shortly after he’d arrived from Ketterdam. He didn’t know them very well, but their exploits had become legends with the whispers of the other students.  _ They took down an entire squadron by themselves. They blew up the Fjerdan royal palace. They’re saints _ . 

Kuwei quickly weighed the risks in his head. Saints or not, they could help him. Leoni was an Alkemi and could help with the chemical components. And Adrik was a talented squaller who could launch the rockets. Without them, the probability of a catastrophe happening was fairly high. He squared his shoulders and sprang up.

“Hi.”

Leoni whirled around, arms outstretched, the model of a Grisha soldier faced with a surprise attack. Adrik startled, fell off his swivel chair, and landed in a heap. Though to his credit, a breeze flitted about the room. 

There was a moment of awkward silence, then Leoni lowered her hands and smiled. “You’re Nhaban, right? The Inferni?”

Kuwei blinked, surprised. He hadn’t expected them to know about him. But her smile was warm and genuine. He nodded hesitatingly. “Yeah.”

Adrik finally hauled himself off the floor and dusted his kefta off. “What do you want?”

Leoni glared at him for his brusqueness, but Kuwei didn’t mind. He launched into his spiel, and soon Leoni was on board as soon as he mentioned “festival” and “annoying the Triumvirate.” Adrik was a harder sell, but as soon as Leoni batted her eyelashes at him, he caved. Kuwei almost snorted at that. He’d thought Tamar and Nadia were infuriating together, but at least they didn’t dance around each other like magnets and pretend they weren’t in love when the opposite was clearly true. He had a feeling he would regret asking for their help a few hours in. 

The whole day passed by in a blur as they put the fireworks together. Leoni filled the room with bright chatter, Kuwei occasionally butting with a clever comment, and Adrik giving dry commentary but periodically getting up to bring them food from the kitchens. It was comfortable falling back into the old rhythms of working in a lab with a partner, the memory of his father as his partner becoming more nostalgic than painful. When they asked about his background, he stuck as close to the truth as possible. 

“I’m from Shu Han. My father and I were suspected of being Grisha, so we fled and tried to cross into Ravka through the mountains.” He forced his hands to be steady as he poured a vial of blasting powder into a cannister. “He didn’t make it.”

“I’m sorry,” Leoni said as she laid a hand on his arm after he put the canister down. “That must have been difficult.”

Kuwei bobbed his head in acknowledgement. He didn’t deal with sympathy very well. People tended to focus on his own survival, the fact he’d somehow made it out alive from two countries that wanted him worse than dead. They often overlooked what he had to do to survive. And who he had to leave behind.

His answer left a wake of silence until Adrik cleared his throat awkwardly and steered their conversation towards Kuwei’s academic career at the Little Palace. Kuwei could tell they genuinely cared and he found himself laughing along with Leoni at Adrik’s poor impression of Zoya. 

Maybe if he couldn’t have the family, or even the food, he could at least have friends.

* * *

By the time night fell, their fireworks were all finished and carefully packed into a small wagon. Kuwei poked his head out the door and looked both ways. David and the others should be done with their meeting soon and he didn’t want to risk being caught before they had a chance to blow anything up. He waved Leoni and Adrik forwards and together they wheeled the heavily loaded wagon out to the lake. 

“By the way, I still think this is a horrible idea,” Adrik said. He managed to give off the impression of crossing his arms with just his one. 

Kuwei grunted as he lifted a heavier firework from the wagon and positioned it in the grass. “We’re only in danger if you don’t launch them fast or far enough.”

Leoni positioned another firework. “You wouldn’t kill us on purpose, would you?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

A few minutes of manual labor later, the wagon was emptied and the fireworks were lined up in the grass. Kuwei fiddled with the sparker at his wrist. “Ready?”

Leoni nodded and gave him a thumbs-up. Adrik just frowned. Kuwei clapped his hands together and lit the fuse. Adrik propelled it skywards with a sharp movement of his arm and in the dark night, Kuwei soon lost sight of the explosive. 

A few seconds later, red exploded across the sky with a resounding boom. Kuwei focused on each spark, feeling every one in his bones. He waved an arm and the sparks rearranged themselves into a rude word in Shu before fizzling away. 

“What did that say?” Leoni asked curiously as she prepped the next firework. Kuwei’s brain suddenly stopped working. 

“Sh- Uh...Shark. It meant shark.” 

He prayed desperately that the Shu delegation hadn’t been around. But when he looked towards the Grand Palace, instead of scandalized Shu officials, he spotted David practically jogging down the hill towards them. 

Adrik instantly snapped to attention. “Sir.”

David seemed a bit too out of breath to respond, but after a moment, he straightened up and peered at all of them from behind his wire-rim glasses. He looked annoyed. “Are you being safe?”

Did Adrik’s eyes dart towards Leoni? Kuwei looked towards the ground and smirked. If he was wrong and they weren’t actually a thing, he’d throw himself into the lake. 

Despite their assurances they were using the utmost precautions, David continued to lecture them about pyrokinetic safety. It was all stuff Kuwei had heard before from his father, so he tuned it out and instead admired the blades of grass by his feet. 

“...What are your limits?”

Kuwei blinked, then looked back up. David was looking directly at him, a distinct look of curiosity on his face. 

“Sir?”

“Can you only form static images? How much control do you have over the images? If I gave you a message, would you be able to recreate it?”

“I...I’m not sure yet,” Kuwei admitted, shooting a glance at Leoni. She seemed to understand.

“I can control them too since they’re just blasting powders,” she explained, taking David’s attention off Kuwei. He nodded at her gratefully. 

The three of them conversed for a bit longer, Adrik shuffling his feet and muttering about tailwinds behind them. David wanted to know everything about their process, from their proportions of powders to which minerals they used for pigmentation. He even pulled out a little notebook from his kefta and started taking notes on what they were saying. From Kuwei’s perspective, his “notes” looked little more than illegible scribbles, but he supposed David had a way of deciphering them.

David took a seat on the grass a few paces away, notebook at the ready again. “Go on, then,” he urged.

Kuwei exchanged a look with Leoni, who shrugged. If David was just going to watch instead of stopping them, they could still go on as planned. Kuwei lit another firework, and with Leoni helping, they pulled the sparks into a resemblance of Adrik’s frowning face. If possible, the real Adrik’s scowl deepened.

“You got the nose wrong.”

Leoni patted his cheek. “Don’t be cross. I’ll get it right the next time if I just study your face a bit more.”

Adrik turned red. Kuwei coughed loudly into his elbow.

The next few they did gradually increased in difficulty, from an orange jurda blossom to a cawing crow. Shu Han’s horse moved across the sky next, its hooves leaving a trail of golden sparks that could have been mistaken for stars until they winked out of existence. Novyi Zem’s leopard appeared next, chasing a rabbit that burst into a spray of white sparks. The three fish of Kerch splashed,, their tails spraying shimmering drops of water.

They had saved the double eagle of Ravka as a finale of sorts. Kuwei lit the fuse, and Adrik sent it straight up. Over the Grand Palace, the bird spread its wings wide, illuminating the grounds below for a brief moment before the light faded. 

There was a moment of silence, then scattered applause from small clusters of shadowed figures. Kuwei realized they’d drawn an audience, mostly political officials finishing up a long day of business at the palace. Warm skin brushed his as Leoni took his and Adrik’s hand and led them into a hasty bow. She was glowing from her use of Grisha power. All three of them were. 

“Let’s get this cleaned up,” Adrik hissed. Kuwei summoned a ball of fire into his palm so they’d be able to see, and sure enough, Adrik looked flustered from all the attention they were getting. He ran his hand through his fair hair. “I don’t want any trace of our little... _ project _ to remain by the time the learners are out here tomorrow.”

“Are you scared to lose your reputation as the perpetual ‘wet towel’?” Leoni teased as she tugged up her sleeves and started drawing spilled powders from the ground. Kuwei started tossing their tools back into the wagon. There wasn’t much left that hadn’t been blown away in the skies, so it didn’t take them long to finish up. David had already disappeared without another word to them, no doubt heading to his labs for a bit of experimentation of his own. 

The three of them started heading back to the Little Palace to return their supplies. Kuwei pulled the wagon while Leoni and Adrik walked ahead of him, their heads bent together in conversation. He could still feel the buzz in his veins from using his powers for such a long period of time.

Belatedly, he realized he hadn’t thought of what- or who- he’d been missing the whole time they were setting off fireworks. He still felt the pang of loss acutely, but the day hadn’t been as bad as he’d expected. If anything, he had enjoyed himself. Was that wrong?

“-Nhaban?” Leoni’s concerned voice cut through his spiralling thoughts. “Are you alright?”

_ Nhaban _ . That’s right, he was Nhaban now. Kuwei forced a smile.

“Fine. Just a bit tired.”

“Oh! Well Adrik and I were wondering if you’d like to try this again. Maybe next week?” Leoni looked at him hopefully. Kuwei’s gaze flickered to Adrik who looked slightly less hopeful but he supposed that was to be expected. He liked them- they weren’t the imposing saints the stories had made them out to be. Instead, they were warm. Genuine. Even when he was sure they suspected something was off about his story. It felt like family. 

“I- I think I would like that,” he admitted. Leoni smiled again, and the corner of Adrik’s mouth moved upwards a fraction of an inch. 

“We’ll see you around, then.”

Strangely, Kuwei felt himself looking forward to it. They made an odd trio- two saints and a boy that didn’t exist- but they fit, somehow. He felt the jagged cracks in his heart slowly being patched over. 


End file.
